Terrifying symptoms

[sonia]

You know what's fucking terrifying? Meeting with an active 71-year-old friend on zoom who says she has a cold, and watching her slur a few words and gently tip over toward the desk beside her. I had just long enough to yell her husband's name in hopes he was nearby, and pick up my phone to call my friend's number in case the phone ringing would get his attention, when she came to.

I immediately asked for her husband's number and put it in my phone. I urged her to tell him what happened. She remembered "looking for something to the side," so I said she slurred words and lost consciousness. She said she needed to go back to bed, and we could finish our meeting later. Of course I agreed.

And texted her husband to ask him to keep an eye on her, and maybe call 911 to consult with paramedics. Not to be alarmist, but I'd hate for her to miss immediate treatment if it's a stroke. He answered that she had talked with him, and gone back to bed, and he thought she had just been doing too much while ill.

Maybe a transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke)? Dunno, I'm not a medical professional, but that was terrifying to watch from a distance and not be able to do anything. My friend's husband also said, "You are TRULY a wonderful friend!!" which I assume was sincere and not sarcastic? Seems like the absolute minimum I could do, to reach out to him.

While chatting about having a cold before all that, I asked if she had tested for Covid, and she said, "I haven't been around anyone." Which is an odd thing to say, since she just got back from a trip to the coast with her sister. And she got the cold somewhere. I hope rest is all she needs to be ok!

ETA: Had our postponed meeting this afternoon and she seems ok, if still a little bleary with the cold.
Further ETA a week later: She said today that she realized she had doubled up on her cough syrup, which knocked her out. Also she's been in bed for a week with this "cold".

Comments

Holy panopticon

[jesse_the_k]

...the only good part of this story is Zoom enabled you to act.

Endemic means we can catch COVID anywhere.

[altamira16]

You did the absolute correct thing, and her husband being so chill about her going back to bed does not seem great. This is how people die in their sleep.

[silveradept]

That is terrifying, and well done for acting on it and trying to make sure your friend was okay.

It could be illness, or it could have been something much worse. I hope it isn't, given that she went back to bed and is trying to sleep it off, instead of getting checked for a stroke.

[panisdead]

!!!!!!

YIKES, I hope she's okay.

[runpunkrun]

Yikes! That's very scary. Glad you were able to get in touch with her husband.

[ofearthandstars]

Yikes! Thanks for being the sort of person to reach out to her partner and make him aware. I hope she is okay.

[thistleingrey]

Hopefully her husband has a sense of how she tends to speak day to day when tired or fighting a cold. My mother (older than your friend) dips in and out of verbal coherence when her immune system is beset by non-covid colds (there's a whole set of things I check for, which I can do by voice-only phone by now because ... practice and prior data, I guess). Not all slurring is dire, but I'm glad you alerted her husband as well.

[dadi]

That is very scary. You did totally the right thing and I hope she will be ok!

[amethyst73]

Yikes! Glad you were able to summon help - absolutely the right thing to do!
Hope she's okay.

[to_do_list]

Wow, yeah... terrifying. Sending best wishes.

I had a couple of weird incidents like that in my teens and 20s. They never figured out what it was. And then they haven't repeated since, knock on wood. But at 71, the risk of it being a mini-stroke or a stroke is definitely much higher, making the whole thing much scarier.